I took a few days off to think about an answer…….
What is the status of our “Present age”?
Look about you. What do you see?
I see fear and the stench that comes around when we are driven
by fear. Our present age is not lacking in passion. God knows what passion
we mere mortals have unleashed upon this mortal coil, no, no, our age lacks
reflection. We are unable to simple stop and wonder what has become of us.
Instead of reflection, we wield our passions as a sword. The problem lies with
the fact that our passions have been muted, made impotent, by our desperate
need to fit in and be part of the “civilized” crowd. It is simple uncool to wonder who
we are and what are we to be? I wonder who in this “modern” age actually
sits down without all that technology and ask, ask themselves a simple question,
engages in simple reflection about “who they are”? Who is so uncool as to
begin the engagement with themselves as to the nature of being?
It is so unmodern to wonder, to engage with oneself as to the nature
of who we are. For don’t the ads tell us who we are…… become part of
the Pepsi generation. Be all you can be in the army. Buy our deodorant
and all the women will throw themselves at you. Didn’t you know?
Listen to the ads and everything will be understood. The ads offer us
glimpses into images of who we might be. We the advertisers, we
can sell you an image of role playing game, want to play “The player”
easy enough, want to be the cool trend setter, done, just buy our product
and you are that trend setter. It is not being we are interested in but
we are interested in becoming that image of being. For the fact is, that
to become, being something, is hard work, whereas if we can purchase
a image of being, it is a lot easier. We can proclaim our status of, our image
of a ladies man or a trend setter or a trust fund baby, by simply buying
the correct image with a car or a house or trendy clothes or a styling haircut.
We don’t actually need to be any of these things if we are simply an image of
those things. The image, that is what is important, not the being for being
takes effort and hard work and self-reflection that simply doesn’t fit into
our days because our days is filled with yoga classes and tai chi
and we simply don’t have the time to engage in self-reflection.
And why do we plays this game of creating an image of ourselves instead
of actually taking the time to work on understanding who we are?
Why hasn’t anyone told you Kropotkin, that the world is “owned” by the
(pick your choices) the Jews, big business, the trilateral commission,
the illuminate, the freemasons and we don’t stand a chance against this
“evil” group that runs everything and so we simply don’t reflect upon
matters that we have no control over…………… It is simpler to engage
in playing images then to understand how the world really works.
Self reflection means we might actually have to do something about
what we find out and we simply don’t have time, you know with being
unable to switch the yoga class and everything…….
We are sleepwalking through the world, through our lives because we
refuse to engage in any type of serious personal engagement with
who we are and who we might become. God forbid we engage with
self reflection because it might interfere with our social life or our school
work or making money. Being part of the process, being part of the system
is more important then understanding what that system has done to
negate our being and our values… the nihilism of the system is more
important then engaging in any serious self reflection of our being, of
who we are and what we might become.
We are sheep hiding behind some image we have bought on TV,
pretending to be something when we are fearful of any type of
engagement with the serious task of discovering our true nature.
the young, they demand respect because they have no respect
for who they are. that they have no idea of who they are and
what is possible for them but that very thought frightens them
and so they hide behind the demand for respect………
respect is earned, not given… so earn that respect by
the honest engagement with who you are, not with the image
you have bought, but the true self that you are………
We old people, we are guilty of sins ourselves……
Kropotkin